What Xfinity Internet Data Usage Plans will Comcast be Launching? - <AUTHOR> https://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-what-are-the-different-plans-launching <comment><USER2> Go to hell, Comcast. I have a 100Mbps cable Internet connection from them, so I can download about 10MB per second. At that advertised speed, I could burn through a 300GB cap in about 8 hours.

I used to work for an ISP and I totally get the concept of oversubscription. But they're saying I can only use my paid account for about one-seventieth of the month without paying extra, all while advertising all the great streaming services I can use through my account.

I could not possibly be more wholeheartedly supportive of reclassifying Comcast as a common carrier. Using fines to maintain a 70:1 minimum oversubscription model is all the proof I need that this is sorely needed.

<comment><USER3> I'm no fan of Comcast but you do realize that usage-based pricing is totally consistent with common carrier status? AT&T charged based on usage for years while they were a regulated monopoly. Others may disagree but I'd argue that, to the degree that there's wide disparity in usage, there probably needs to be some way of segmenting that usage whether it's fees paid by the upstream (e.g. Netflix) or by the downstream consumer.

<comment><USER4> There's always a vitriolic reaction in geek communities to usage-based billing. I'm used to it by now. My personal conclusion (as much as people shout at me otherwise) is that geek communities quietly realize they are top-1% users and their usage patterns are subsidized by everybody else, so a switch to usage-based billing represents a greater costs to themselves. You see that kind of thing in politics all the time.

<comment><USER5> Explain to me why this is wrong: the last mile is what costs a ton to ISPs (much less than what Comcast charges though) to build and maintain. So why would you make it more expensive for people to use their personal pipe, which just stands there anyway?

You know what, let's do that usage-based billing, the difference between 5GB and 300GB would be about 1%, because of the small cost of the shared pipe. This is just more bullshit from Comcast, unheard of anywhere else on this planet.

Maybe I'm biased, but I can't see where I went wrong.

<comment><USER6> > So why would you make it more expensive for people to use their personal > pipe, which just stands there anyway?

It's not your personal pipe. The bandwidth on the segment connected to you is shared with your neighbours. Upgrading the bandwidth on your segment costs money, ergo we do not want you to use "too much" bandwidth. Pre-emptively curbing bandwidth usage with threats of and/or actual overage fees, ensures higher operating margins and puts off upgrade expenses, thus increasing profits.

Not perhaps the answer you were hoping for, but hey, corporations gotta make money, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > In this trial, XFINITY Internet Economy Plus customers can choose to enroll > in the Flexible-Data Option to receive a $5.00 credit on their monthly bill > and reduce their data usage plan from 300 GB to 5 GB. If customers choose > this option and use more than 5 GB of data in any given month, they will not > receive the $5.00 credit and will be charged an additional $1.00 for each > gigabyte of data used over the 5 GB included in the Flexible-Data Option.

What informed consumer would agree to this?!

Streaming Netflix uses about 1GB/hour for "good" quality streams and 2+GB/hour for HD streams. That would make watching an hour a night come out to $30-60/month of bandwidth charges. Multiply accordingly if you watch more or have multiple people streaming simultaneously. Oh and the way it's worded it sounds like you lose the $5 discount if you go over 5GB.

I can see this leading to some serious bill shock for anybody that signs up.

<comment><USER4> _What informed consumer would agree to this?!_

Informed consumers that know they don't use that much data? Not everyone streams movies or what have you.

If I cancel my Netflix subscription and switch back to physical media, as I have contemplated doing, I will be < 5GB.

<comment><USER8> > Informed consumers that know they don't use that much data?

This is part of the problem. It's very difficult for normal customers to understand how much data they're going to use. When choosing a phone data plan, my dad asked me what plan to go for. How much does google maps use? No idea..

Also, extremely difficult for the customer to dispute the particular data usage, because they don't have access to the audit data that comcast has, and they don't have the technical skill to determine that they really accessed "turnerhd-f.akamaihd.net" when visiting cnn.com anyway. Contrast this with the relative ease of checking phone numbers you don't recognize on your itemized phone bill.

Lastly, most objectionable is this idea of charging penalties for overages. In most industries, if you get more, you pay incrementally less. If I buy a hamburger, soda and fries, I get a discount on the price. If I buy 1000 widgets I get a better price than 10 of them. Comcast and the telcos turn this on its head by charging penalties for overages.

Regulators could force carriers to pro-rate based on the price you paid for your service. For example:

ISP offers 3 packages: 100 GB for $10/mo (overages charged at $0.10/gb) 300 GB for $20/mo (overages charged at $0.06/gb) 750 GB for $30/mo (overages charged at $0.04/gb) 2000 GB for $40/mo (overages charged at $0.02/gb)

EVEN better, offer automatic price brackets... Why make people worry about choosing the right plan. People don't want to make this decision.

First 10GB: $0.10/gb Next 20GB: $0.07/gb Next 50GB: $0.05/gb each GB after that: $0.02/gb

(for illustrative purposes only.. I haven't done the math to see how it compares with current comcast offers)

I don't understand why the telcos think massively penalizing people for going over is a useful pricing model.

<comment><USER4> Have you ever read your electricity bill? They do just that. Your first 1000kWh cost 0.07$ apiece, your second 1000kWh cost 0.12$, your third 0.14$ (for example)

<comment><USER9> Where do you live? I've never seen a bill like that.

If anything, if you agree to use a lot of power you will have a larger fixed price, but a lower per kWh price.

<comment><USER10> It works that way in California for households using PG&E, Southern California Edison, or San Diego Gas and Electric Company [1].

Same up here in Washington for service to a single family residence through a single meter for customers of PSE [2].

[1] [http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6AF20251-011C-4EF2-B99D-...](http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6AF20251-011C-4EF2-B99D-74CA315A4C40/0/RatesFAQ0710_3.pdf)

[2] [https://pse.com/aboutpse/Rates/Documents/elec_sch_007.pdf](https://pse.com/aboutpse/Rates/Documents/elec_sch_007.pdf)

<comment><USER11> quite a few of the providers in Texas are exactly the opposite strangely.. they bill a surcharge for using less than some fixed KWh. i.e. I get charged $5 if i use less than ~500KWh in a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I live for 2 months out of the year on a completely metered Verizon data plan (mifi). Managing it with our home business (small biz web design) and 2 connected kids is ... a royal pain to say the least.

When we arrive the routine goes like this:

Airplane mode for all phones/tablets unless in use Turn off Dropbox syncing (all devices) Turn off Backblaze (cost us about $100 in data last time we forgot to completely disable) iOS updates for our 4 smartphones? Wait until we return home Disable app updates (some are several hundred MB) No Pandora/Sirius streaming or audio streaming of any kind Limited Netflix/Video streaming (only for must watch shows) No large FTP transfers (common for our industry) No Facetime (our kids use) Schedule Dropcam power to turn off at night Block podcast downloads within iTunes The list goes on....

So basically every day you check, and recheck your data use to "catch" any device or service that may be using too much data. When family visits and the number inside the house reaches 6-10 the monthly data cap is blown in just a few days.

And our data cap is not a measly 5GB or even 10GB a month, it can easily reach 40-50GB which costs a relative fortune.

If you look at the list of accommodations above, you'll see a nice collection of US businesses (Apple, Dropbox, Pandora etc.) for whom I can't do business with in a "metered" world.

I can deal with this for 2 months out of my year, but if my home residential Internet was also metered like this our involvement online would be dramatically changed.

<comment><USER13> I have the same issue with a vacation home. I have Little Snitch installed on my Mac which allows me to disable Dropbox and stuff like that automatically when connected to that network. It would be great if there were a feature in iOS to treat certain wifi networks as a 4g connection and disable the app updates and other things it typically only does over wifi.

<comment><USER12> If Internet providers move to metered access the only _bright_ spot in the industry will be the need for software, and hardware to limit, throttle and manage your personal data use (what a future!)

Specifically with smartphones- the built in controls to keep you from blowing through your cellular data plan don't apply when your wifi...is connected to a meted plan. So your device thinks "I'm on wi-fi, update all the things" yet the connection still "cellular".

It would be a sad day in tech when your device OS has to implement an "airplane-esq" mode for metered connections that drops all data-intensive usage and maybe only allows certain notifications through.

<comment><USER14> This exists. Every reletively new Android product (>=4.1) has "Mobile hotspots" under "Data usage".

> Network bandwidth management: New API provides ability to detect metered > networks, including tethering to a mobile hotspot.

Mark the WiFi access points you want to be low data usage and you are good to go. Software that plays nice will use the "isActiveNetworkMetered()" to check if they should download or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> $1/GB, or that 1080p YouTube video costs you more than showers for a week or the electricity to run AC for a day on the _insanely hot_ scale. Meanwhile, traffic has basically no variable costs.

Let's hope they don't regulate ISPs, we don't want to slow the pace of innovation and incredible value generation here.

<comment><USER16> I agree that the pricing is high, but your comparison to showers or electricity isn't really apt, unless you're going so far as to invoke the paradox of value.

<comment><USER17> Is the internet diamonds and the other utilities water...?

If you compare the standard usage of water for bathing and electricity for whatever to the standard usage of the internet, the internet will (according to revelation) be more expensive.

I'd say that, to some degree, you couldn't even claim the paradox of value because the internet is becoming such an integral part of our lives. We use it to pay taxes, work our 9-5 jobs, medical advice, etc.

Kind of like how technically we don't _need_ natural gas or electricity -- we could just use wood-burning fireplaces. But at what point does that become so excessive that we view it like water as opposed to diamonds?

Anyway, I'm getting off track here, but I think revelation's example is pretty decent depending on which angle you take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How do you people in US even allow that to happen? In Poland we pay less than $10 for 10Mbit/s. We pay $30 for 250 Mbit/s DL 20 Mbit/s UL , and last time we had limited data plans was like 8 years. If we were to pay what you pay, for the quality you have, we would basically go for nationwide strike.

<comment><USER19> Comparing prices in different countries isn't that simple. You have to take into account what that price means compared to wages. Someone in Poland on average ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage)) has about 28% the disposable income as someone in the US. So you paying $10 a month feels about the same as someone in the US paying $35.

<comment><USER6> Equipment, cables and materials still cost the same, so the comparison is relevant. Even adjusting for PPP, the difference is striking. And to explain the differences, you have to look at external factors, such as competition and regulation.

<comment><USER20> But deploying and managing that equipment does not cost the same. There is another comment in this thread that says only about 3% of operating costs for Sonic.net come from bandwidth. U.S. based ISPs employ U.S. based workers which on average are paid more than employees in say Poland, so it's hard to do a direct comparison. Not saying that we in the U.S. don't pay too much for internet, just that a direct comparison to other countries is tricky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have Comcast in Colorado. I signed up for Backblaze last month and it uploaded 1.3 TB of data in about 2 weeks. My "normal" bandwidth usage is around 600-800 GB per month, plus the extra terabyte on top of that.

The problem with bandwidth caps is that they effective take away the ability for people to use online services like online backup and streaming sites. My kids that stay at home probably watch a few hours of streaming media every day, which would use up most if not all of the 300GB just with that, let alone everything else.

<comment><USER12> Also a Backblaze customer and after my first "sync" I for the first time was concerned about hitting my Comcast residential cap. I uploaded about 750GB over a two month period and never got a letter or notice. Thankfully the sync now uses significantly less data per day, however these business models are threatened by data caps.

Does anyone here on HN have a startup that relies heavily on data and is worried about these new "plans" and caps?

Also, don't believe that Comcast line that only 2% of customer use more than 300GB. Medium to large families (with teenagers) and many connected devices can easily reach this cap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Meanwhile in Chattanooga (~2 hours from Nashville, TN, Knoxville, TN, and Atlanta GA - all test markets mentioned in the post), I downloaded 300.8GB and uploaded 28.5GB (which is on the low end for me) on a symmetrical 1Gbps connection last month for $69.99 and no contract. Thanks, EPB!

</comment><comment><USER23> An extra 50GB for only $10? What a steal! That is sarcasm, by the way.

I wonder how my day-to-day activities would change if I knew I was constantly eating away at my monthly limit. I'd hate to have to do it, especially because I don't really see the connection between my consumption and "waste" like I do with my energy bill. It would feel like going backwards in time, in a way.

<comment><USER24> That's about the same price per GB as Amazon AWS originally launched with, and they had the choice, scale, and concentration of data centers. So this doesn't seem totally-out-of-whack for consumer retail, to me.

And if there are other paths to get the bits there cheaper – wireless (including mesh, free space optical, or new bandwidths) or new wires – these prices motivate the new entrants who can do it.

Comcast maximizing their profits is not the last step, but one move in an iterated, endless game. Comcast's move – if people choose to pay and Comcast makes money – incents the next round of competition.

<comment><USER25> You understand they launched in 2006 and subsides their hardware costs with extremely high bandwidth costs and that was the highest possible price they charged right?

PS: And a little idea that might blow your mind, Comcast effectively pays nothing for bandwidth to the internet. Like SMS it's so cheap they would have trouble actually finding out how much it costs them and would need to add up the cost of patch cables in the data-center as a significant 'cost'.

<comment><USER24> Of course. But also, such data-center hosting is essentially "wholesale", for customers who are indifferent about location and buying enough to care about slight changes in rates.

Retail, to a particular fixed location, and for households where bandwidth is a tiny part of their overall budget, is naturally going to be 2-10X more expensive.

AWS wholesale transfer _out_ (not subsidized/forgiven to make their service 'sticky') is still $0.12/GB. Comcast's retail price is less than 2X that. No biggie.

<comment><USER25> Your using AWS's highest prices. AWS also lists is $0.05 per GB to the internet and it get's cheaper if your a large scale customer. Comcast on on the other hand charges an "additional $1.00 for each gigabyte of data used over the 5 GB included in the Flexible-Data Option."

<comment><USER24> I don't see AWS's $0.05/GB. I see $0.12/GB outbound, for the first 10TB. Google has the same per-GB pricing.

But again, that's bulk wholesale which is often 2-10X cheaper in any industry. Compare like to like.

<comment><USER15> I think you don't realize that nobody buys GB of traffic wholesale. They buy bandwidth.

<comment><USER6> You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. Nobody buys GB of traffic wholesale, they buy TB of traffic because a GB is literally a rounding error.

What you probably meant to say was that wholesale bandwith is usually puchased by the Mbps on a 95th percentile billing, although you can alternatively buy by the TB from some providers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hope the mods allow this story to stay on the frontpage, because even though it's not intellectually interesting, it's important to respond to threats like this. Future hackers might be impacted by this nonsense if, say, their parents burn through their internet quota using Netflix and then tell their children not to use the internet the rest of the month.

<comment><USER27> It set off the flamewar detector for a while but we overrode that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am currently in one of the test markets for this (Knoxville, TN) and am actively looking for another provider since we hit the bandwidth cap for the third time this month (2 adults, 4 teenagers).

Fortunately, I have three providers in my neighborhood. Of course, it will take me an hour on hold to cancel Comcast, but at least I won't have to deal with them any more.

<comment><USER29> You're lucky. In many places, there are no alternatives to Comcast.

I've asked this out in the open before and always got blank stares and crazy looks, but how hard/expensive would it be to start your own neighborhood ISP and peer directly with a backbone? What's the up-front investment required and how many users at what price point would be needed to make it reasonable or profitable?

I guess the main problem is still transport to the premises...

<comment><USER6> >I've asked this out in the open before and always got blank stares and crazy looks, but how hard/expensive would it be to start your own neighborhood ISP and peer directly with a backbone?

The technical parts are fairly straightforward, what gets hard/expensive is the legal, permiting, construction part.

> What's the up-front investment required and how many users at what price > point would be needed to make it reasonable or profitable?

As the old adage goes, if you have to ask then you can't afford it...

> I guess the main problem is still transport to the premises...

Exactly. Rule of thumb is that 90% of network costs are in the last mile and most of those costs are in the last few yards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sitting here in Finland on my open, unmetered, 350mbit home internet connection, not worrying about how many HD YouTube videos I can stream, vagrant images I can clone or RAW images I can sync to the cloud - I wonder how a country which has so many smart, gifted people hasn't yet realised that the Internet should be a human right, without caps, slow lanes or censorship.

<comment><USER31> The same country that did not have all states ratify its anti-slavery amendment until the last year or two. The same country with a history of maintaining overseas secret prisons, abuse of surveillance powers, and a barely functional justice system. (I say all this as an american.)

If we haven't even realized that human rights are human rights, why would anyone expect us to realize that internet is; especially when there is profit to be made from it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is there any adjective that carries more weight than the word brazen? I'm at a loss for words.

<comment><USER33> Complain less, call your congressional representatives more. Email doesn't mean shit. Pick up the phone.

Then complain here =P

<comment><USER9> This doesn't seem like a congress thing.

What could they even do except give comcast bad PR?

Unless you are proposing that we return to the days of telecom regulation.

<comment><USER34> That is a popular idea right now. More specifically, the president and others have tossed around the idea of regulating broadband internet under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934

<comment><USER35> Without defending Comcast et. al. I have ZERO confidence that this president and congress would come up with anything remotely beneficial to the retail/residential internet consumer.

<comment><USER36> Well then you're in luck - the FCC determines the classification of telecommunications services in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> As someone who used over 4 terabytes of bandwidth last month...just lol. How sad is it that in the modern world I can be forced to physically move to another city/state just to avoid monopolistic ISP's?

</comment><comment><USER38> Very interestingly, they did NOT add the Chattanooga market.

Chattanooga has its own public utility that provides power and Gigabit fiber. See [http://www.salon.com/2014/07/18/comcasts_worst_nightmare_how...](http://www.salon.com/2014/07/18/comcasts_worst_nightmare_how_tennessee_could_save_americas_internet_partner/)

</comment><comment><USER39> >Each of these options requires that those who choose to use more of the service pay more than others. The Flexible-Data Option adds an alternative, permitting those who choose to use less to pay less.

It's so nice to have alternatives! I'm glad we live in a world where consumers have so much choice.

</comment><comment><USER40> I work from home a lot, stream spotify, but don't really stream video. I average less than 100GB per month. However i could easily see how streaming netflix or other services could cause someone to go over the 300GB data usage. My largest month of usage was 4TB due to some search engine work I was doing.

I don't like the precedent this is setting and I just hope Google keeps putting pressure on with their Fiber offering to make these other companies compete. In some cases I wish municipalities would step in and stop allowing companies like comcast to be the sole provider in their area.

I foresee comcast marketing their "increasing speeds" in the future. In which you could never actually take full advantage of because of these limits.

</comment><comment><USER41> Can anyone explain to me what the marginal costs are for additional traffic, within Comcast's network?

I presume that once you're powering the routers, they consume pretty equivalent power at peak and off-peak times, but maybe that's a faulty assumption?

<comment><USER4> As I understand it the marginal cost of the first N gigabytes is approximately zilch, but N+1 gigabytes is $$$$- because they now have to upgrade the infrastructure.

The price tags they put on more data are almost certainly an attempt at "market allocation" rather than the actual cost of the data. In other words, the increased price on bandwidth lowers demand, hopefully to the level Comcast is targeting. Think of electricity companies, and off-peak rates. They charge more during peak load to drive the market to shift more load to off-peak times.

<comment><USER6> > As I understand it the marginal cost of the first N gigabytes is > approximately zilch, but N+1 gigabytes is $$$$- because they now have to > upgrade the infrastructure.

Missed out a step there. It's not zero then suddenly $$$$. It's more a question of gradual, usually low cost, equipment upgrades. All backhaul is via fiber optics, so by switching optics you go from 1G/10G/100G to multiple 1G/10G/100G waves. You might need a new router blade or a bigger chassis at some point.

Only if you really messed up do you need infrastructure upgrades. This might mean splitting nodes, i.e. pulling a bit more fiber to hotspots, but that is why you have spare empty conduits and excess fiber strands in your cables. If you don't then you truly deserve all the misery you brought upon yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Pure unrestricted, unregulated capitalism. Pure monopoly. Pure evil.

Is the next question "how long will googlers in the Bay Area put up with such a thing before [finally] rolling out FiOS here or nation-wide?"

<comment><USER43> It's not even close to unregulated capitalism. in many areas Comcast has a legislated monopoly.

Google is not some magic unicorn that's going to save us from old bloated mega corps like comcast. the only reason google rolls fiber to the places it does is cause the local governments are willing to play ball. and the bay area isn't known for it's streamlined government. in fact, you folks are at the bottom of a very long list. ([http://pando.com/2014/02/25/having-being-burned- once-before-...](http://pando.com/2014/02/25/having-being-burned-once-before- google-wont-bring-fiber-to-san-francisco/))

The only thing that will save the US internet market is competition, google's efforts are great, I'm not convinced it will be enough. I think innovations in Wireless tech, that will allow more reliable and widespread WISP's will help. The old guard of the wireline providers have built the walls quite high and it will take time for even big players like google to wear them down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I just want to point out how genius this is. Comcast, I suspect, spends 99% of its time thinking about psychology and pricing.

They know that they want to continue to get about $150/mo from every American family. All they are doing is back-plotting how to get there.

First, they start squeezing corporate network participants. But that won't get them all the way there, and there's a regulatory risk there too. They've already signed ad hoc net-neut agreements that limit this approach.

So they will definitely have to squeeze consumers. But they've been selling "Internet at y Mbps" for decades now. They can't just flip to "10 GB / 50 GB / 100 GB / 500 GB Internet." Consumers (i.e. voters) would be outraged, and they would lose the TWC deal, which is key to their 'Don't Be a Dumb Pipe Company' strategy.

But they need to sew the seeds. So what do they do first? A discount for less usage, rather than a surcharge for more usage. Same thing, different words. If it's well tolerated, they'll steepen the gradient.

CMCSA is at a delicate liminal point. They are threading the needle brilliantly.

Who would have thought that the American consumer would shift his media consumption habits with whiplash rapidity away from cable and broadcast TV, but that Comcast would survive in basically the exact same position?

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting pattern. All the top first responses are critical of Comcast while responses to them are Comcast apologists. I suspect there is a strong Comcast- paid presence in HN?

<comment><USER46> I'd disagree with you - I'd bet there are a ton of general telecom folks floating around - I've done work for the yellow carrier, as well as magenta, red and orange, plus a regional RBOC. I get the technology, and strongly think internet service should be a common carrier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Thank god for alternative internet providers like Monkeybrainz in SF.

This is like payday loans for internet service, taking advantage of the low income population.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'd be for more leeway on pricing if in most places in the US the ISP wasn't a monopoly. Competition is supposed to exist in a market economy. Comcast and its ilk like to act as if competition exists but only on a national scale. On my local city scale there is virtually no competition. That's the only scale that matters.

</comment><comment><USER49> Why in the US is ADSL not more prevalent? The Australian broadband sector is very competitive and generally (unless you are very rural), there are hundreds of companies competing for your business. As a result, prices have consistently come down over time (when I first got ADSL in 2004 I got 1GB of data at 256kbps for $50 (1)), now the same buys unlimited data at the fastest my phone line will allow (14MBit)*. There are also no slowdowns during peak periods - providers ensure sufficiant bandwidth is available. It seems strange to me that the US is apparently locked into cable internet where only one or two providers service entire cities.

(1) This is still fairly expensive but it is primarily because the majority of traffic is international and must come through fairly limited bandwidth undersea pipes. I would imagine the majority of traffic in the US is local and therefore cheaper.

<comment><USER4> There are all sorts of market reasons but I think a very important reason is the death of the landline (POTS).

That is, many people have cut the POTS service, which means ADSL costs extra (have to reactivate unneeded landline service)

<comment><USER46> Most of the carriers now sell unbundled ADSL now (AT&T, CenturyLink and I believe Verizon in non-fios markets.) it has more to do with distance limitations having too much of a downward effect on speeds. More than less subscribers are around the 5.5kf+ (kilotfoot) range, which usually means sub 15 megabit speeds - and a limited upload (inherent to all ADSL types).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I live in one of the areas with the caps and this is how it plays out:

1\. I tell my wife to stop playing so many movies on netflix. 2\. I stopped watching youtube or other video services unless I really, really want to see something. 3\. I watch my internet usage and choose when to use it. 4\. I cancelled Hulu. 5\. I grow suspicious of my neighbors when my usage seems high as there is no breakdown of where usage comes from. 6\. I suspect comcast's own services are not counted towards the meter, but can't prove anything. 7\. I stopped playing so many games. 8\. I now strategize my downloads.

There is no real other choice in my area -- the closest competitor to Comcast offers less than half the speed and only advertises for 1/4 the speed.

In my opinion, as someone affected by this, it's just a way to squeeze the customer more and maintain a monopoly on content.

</comment><comment><USER51> I have Time Warner Cable which is pretty decent service.

300mbit/20mbit. I could burn though 300gb in probably 2.26 to 2.5 hours.

125kb/1mbit _300mbit /1sec = 125_300 = 37,500kb/sec 300gb = 300gb _1024mb /1gb = 307,200mb 307.2gb / 37.5mb/sec = 307,200mb _ 1sec/37.5mb = 8192sec 8921sec / 1min/60sec / 1hr/60min = 2.27hrs

So my whole months worth of bandwidth gone on 10 large video games.

<comment><USER52> If I purchase one steam humble bundle, I'd blow through a quarter of my data cap just downloading the games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Switched to Comcast Business Class service four years ago. 50/10, 5 static IPs, clueful LOCAL techs who don't rely on a script and speak English as a first language. No caps whatsoever. I run my own web/mail servers.

I never thought I would say "I'm happy with my Comcast service", but then I do pay $150/month for _just_ Internet.

</comment><comment><USER54> Most of the comments here have already been posted to the Reddit thread that's been at the top of the front page all day: [http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2mw2sw/comcast_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2mw2sw/comcast_to_begin_charging_for_data_usage_on_home/)

<comment><USER55> I always saw HackerNews as a subset of Reddit, without all the silly puns and jokes for the most part.

<comment><USER12> True, but there are still many smart and informative comments on Reddit that (if you wade through the noise) can add to the conversation. Reddit's reach is extensive and attracts people who may not frequent HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> We went through this usage based billing (UBB, aka capacity based billing (CBB)) thing here in Canada a couple of years back, where the incumbent carriers (DSL and cable) somewhat successfully lobbied the CRTC to set wholesale tariffs based on a mix of generally lower access fees (paid per subscriber, specifying a certain connection speed but no actual traffic), and interconnect fees (covering a certain interconnect speed between the incumbent's network and the third party ISP's backhaul). The net effect of the model is that a third party ISP's variable costs are essentially the cost of their interconnect with the incumbent, and are dominated by their burst needs during peak usage times. As a consequence, there are a number of business models which this lends itself to (in terms of incentivizing users to shift usage to off-peak times) in addition to straight download cap vs. unlimited offerings. For example, some ISPs (like Teksavvy, for example) offer unlimited plans with a reduction in speed during peak hours.

There was a LOT of debate on the subject on places like dslreports when this was in front of the CRTC. The general consensus seemed to be that UBB in principle is a good thing (it allows for more flexibility in third party ISP business models, and roughly aligns costs with income for the incumbent) although the particular tariff prices put forth by the incumbents were inflated and suspect.

As a real-world benchmark, my third party provider (start.ca) offers a 30/5 cable plan with 200GB of usage for $45 CAD (roughly $40 USD) per month. Going to an unlimited plan adds an extra $15 CAD to that, with the risk for overages being borne by the ISP.

Of course, the incumbents' retail offerings are universally terrible (their caps are laughably small, and their prices higher than any third party provider). Because of the lack of separation between their retail and wholesale operations, they're able to offer (presumably loss leader) promotions that third party providers simply can't, and have the benefit of being able to structure their tariff offerings to screw third party providers wherever possible. So that part of the regulatory environment sucks.

Overall though it feels like a decent model (although the actual tariff prices are quite out of line, particularly for interconnect fees). $60 CAD a month for unlimited 30/5 is a fair price in my mind, and if my needs ever change there are enough third party provider with enough diverse business models that I'd likely find something that works for me.

</comment><comment><USER57> Everyone complains about Comcast, but how many people here have an option in their area and still use Comcast?

I have RCN service at my house, but most people I know here and in DC still use Comcast. Some of that may be because the smaller providers don't advertise as well, but there must be some people actively choosing Comcast service.

<comment><USER58> I despise Comcast. I hate themm.

I currently have Comcast as my ISP. They provide 50Mbps service to my residence. The next closest provider maxes out at 7Mbps.

20Mbps is, realistically, my floor for bandwidth. If any other provider offered service at >= 20Mbps I would leave Comcast in a heartbeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Rent seeking at it's most obvious.

</comment><comment><USER6> For reference: wholesale bandwidth cost is about 0.1 cents per GB.

</comment><comment><USER60> This is going to get major pushback from all content providers like Netflix, Pandora, et al.

<comment><USER6> It's not like there's much they can do as they aren't Comcast's customers.

<comment><USER60> They can directly point to Comcast as the problem. They can lobby lawmakers just as Comcast can. In my opinion, this is going to be a problem for them, and any of these content providers have way stronger voices than a single customer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Not complaining too much as long as there's fair warning when hitting certain thresholds of the cap. Worst thing I want is not unknowingly exceeding the threshold and getting billed an extra 100$

<comment><USER6> I'm sure there's going to be a fair bit of complaining as time goes by and normal usage grows but caps stay the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is old news.

Comcast, TWC, and AT&T are all doing bit bucket tiered service now.

10 bucks for 50 gigs seems quite reasonable to me, honestly.

<comment><USER62> In San Francisco, Comcast residential service has no data transfer caps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Hahaha... Americans.</comment>


Buzzfeed paid the teen who made its top quizzes in free swag - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/buzzfeed-top-traffic-quizzes-teen.html <comment><USER2> What kind of insane mental gymnastics did people perform to arrive at the conclusion that kids writing silly quizzes for free is an existential threat to paid content creators? Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it seems like the average Twitter activist has an obsessive need to frame everything as a societal issue in which someone is the oppressor and someone else is their victim. Notice how the quoted tweet aims to frame the people laid off as struggling underdogs while this girl is ignorant and priveleged because she "can afford" to have free time. It's not BuzzFeed being exploitative that caused the problem, or the fact that a literal child produced better work in her free time than people with industry experience and 40 hours a week - no, this evil is privilege at work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Way to impose your own agenda on it. That was a minor point in the article, the reason I posted it was some disgust at the fact that a company make a fortune off advertising then throw some cheap trash at the most productive member of their online community that enriched them.

<comment><USER2> What? It seemed to dominate the Twitter threads linked from the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Rediculous. This is not too dissimilar to claiming that reddit or facebook is profiteering of their users as they submit the content.

"If you create content for free&for fun because you can afford to, there is always the possibility that this content will be used instead of content created by paid creators. It's up to volunteer creators to realize if&how much their work hurts paid creators."

Well, I guess it's time to stop posting to reddit or facebook and time they employed professional content creators...

</comment><comment><USER4> Social media work is the factory work of today. It largely requires no skill, one is easily replacable, and more and more tasks are automated away.

The difference is, I guess, that the jobs are also appealing. People that do this spend most their time on social media anyway, and now they can see themselves as tech workers. But, in truth, the idea to make your passion into a job, is problematic if that passion does not require skill.

And so, a tech Proletariat creates itself and is replaced by actual child work.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why is there no venom towards buzzfeed for this? To me they are the ones to blame (if one is to get mad).</comment>


Create-Static-Site: Production-Ready Asset Pipeline for Hugo/Jekyll - <AUTHOR> https://forestry.io/blog/instant-production-ready-scaffolding-with-create-static-site/ <comment><USER2> I didn't realize how amazing this project was until I used it the first time. It's by far the quickest way to go from new site to writing frontend code.</comment>


How Badoo built a billion-pound social network... on sex (Wired UK) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/05/features/sexual-network?page=all <comment><USER2> Read about this site before, still very unsure of how true a lot of their facts and numbers are. But they've certainly done exceptionally well.

<comment><USER3> They're quite big in my country.

There was another thread on Badoo losing lots of users yesterday, where I posted the above link:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2464731></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you need help solving business problems with data? - <AUTHOR>

My company is looking to better understand how businesses use data from disparate sources to inform decision-making. Do you have a business problem you've been wanting to solve with data, but haven't gotten around to? I'd love to work with you and help you through it.<p>I'm an MIT-trained engineer with a background in data analysis. I'm looking to work with a few people, for free, to get feedback and a better understanding of your process. If you're interested, email me: email@example.com. <comment><USER2> Yes, there are many business problems I'd want to solve with data. For instance, I'd love to know trending Twitter topics specific to a core group of people interested in X.</comment>


NYC Should Bus In Hackers from Carnegie Mellon & MIT - <AUTHOR> http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/08/what-id-do-if-i-was-charlie-odonnell.html

<comment><USER2> As a Carnegie Mellon alumnus, I can assure you that many (if not most) CS/IS/MISM graduates already end up in NYC or San Francisco. Yours truly included (hello from SF!)

DC, Pittsburgh, Baltimore are popular too, though much less so.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you need incentive to come to NYC, you aren't going to make it.

<comment><USER4> I think there are plenty of incentives for hackers to come to NYC but it's mainly from the finance sector. Wall St firms wining and dining their hire prospects is common practice. Matt's recommendation is to show that the startup community can entice hackers in its own way. Startups might not be able to pay the salary + bonus that finance firms can throw at you, but perhaps they can gain influence in other ways.

<comment><USER5> Salary isn't everything, the I-bank guys can be miserable. I know a guy who just backed out of his offer from JP Morgan for less money at a smaller firm that did something entirely. It is less money and the same hours, but the project is more fun. Milage may vary but I know that for me +/- 10k is about what I call equal offers.

I was just in a position picking between two offers. One paid about $8k more than the other in salary, but the lower offer sounded more fun. I took the lower offer. Promptly after my start date they told me about a bonus I'd be getting that I didn't know about that comes to about 10k, so I ended up coming out ahead, but even if that hadn't happened I'd be OK with my decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why buses? Are the trains not working today?

<comment><USER4> Trains are a fair bit more expensive than buses. We don't want scrappy startups sending mixed signals ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't get the city competition, but maybe that's because I didn't grow up in my city (Philadelphia) and I was never a recognized member of my previous small-town community (for various reasons, none important). Who cares if your city is the "Silicon Valley of the East Coast"? Suddenly that means tech isn't going on in all the other East Coast cities? You show me even a _small town_ that _doesn't_ have at least 5 different tech companies.

Why does a particular city _need_ a "startup scene"? How is having NYC known as a place that tech companies like to call home, versus tech companies just going about their business without drawing attention to the fact that they are in NYC because it doesn't mean anything to the 90% of their customers who don't live there, going to do anything for NYC? Attract more businesses for more tax revenue? Then why would the type of business matter at all?

Reversing that question, why does any startup _need_ a particular city? What does it matter that DuckDuckGo is in Valley Forge, PA (even though everyone says Philly, because Valley Forge is toootally inside Philadelphia city limits when it's down the Turnpike past even King of Prussia. Might as well say New Ark, DE is in Philly)? It's still a decent upstart search engine, and would be the same decent site if it were in Bethesda, MD (where people would probably say it was in DC).

If the price is right, you can find talent anywhere (cities don't have a monopoly on growing smart people out of test tubes), and if the biz is right you can find funding anywhere (or would an investor seriously give up a good opportunity just because the company's HQ is more than a lunch-hour drive away?). None of these things have particular geographical components, unless you're in some dead-end, old, mining enclave on the side of a mountain in up- state Pennsylvania. Or maybe not, maybe you got so good of a deal on land that you don't mind the capital cost of getting started from stone-age-scratch.

But at any rate, it means nothing to me if, say, Orlando, FL has more tech firms than Philly. That's them, not me. Where they are certainly has to have no more impact on me than if they lived next door to me.

<comment><USER8> _Why does a particular city need a "startup scene"?_

As a startup employee, a practical reason to live somewhere with a "startup scene" is so that I can get another job easily if something doesn't work out. I don't want to have to move from Valley Forge to Orlando when DuckDuckGo tanks.

<comment><USER9> Shouldn't that be ' _if_ DuckDuckGo tanks'? Or do you know something I don't? ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> From where I'm standing NYC has no recognizable shortage of young technical talent. Hackers from Carnegie Mellon & MIT don't need to be "bussed in" because they're already drawn to NYC in droves, as are young people from all areas of the country. The talent pool and the startup scene are both thriving. The author believes he has the solution to a problem that I just don't recognize as a significant one in NYC.

<comment><AUTHOR> HAHAHA. Are you a startup founder? Have you ever tried to recruit a web hacker for an early stage startup in NYC? Early stage companies are desperate for talent.

<comment><USER11> I'm on the West Coast looking for startup gigs in NYC and haven't seen that many listed. Who needs people?

<comment><USER5> Check out startuply, union square venture's portfolio of companies, new york tech meetup, and nextNY.

I asked the question you are asking on HN about 3 years ago, someone gave me the answer above (thought startuply didn't exist at the time), and ended up at a startup I wound up loving to work for not 2 months later, so good luck and maybe the kharma will be passed on.

<comment><USER11> Thanks very much for the pointers. Looks like a good start.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stream time-lapse images in minutes from a Raspberry Pi or any other platform - <AUTHOR> https://pss-camera.appspot.com/lipis/green-plant/ <comment><AUTHOR> While you can download the executables for OS X or Windows from the downloads page, you can also run it from the sources ([https://github.com/lipis/timelapse](https://github.com/lipis/timelapse)) if you are interested of doing that with Raspberry Pi.</comment>


An Introduction to Statistics with Python - <AUTHOR> http://work.thaslwanter.at/Stats/html/ <comment><USER2> iPython Notebook is great. Making it the norm for exploring/teaching ideas in a coding context is a great trend.

One other thing I hope comes along is annotated mathematical formulas/expressions. Any time I see a mathematical symbol I want to be able to hover over it and get its definition (in the context it's being used) and other relevant information. So often I see formulas in articles/books where they don't explain everything. It makes it really hard for outsiders/amateurs to catch on to the ideas being discussed.

<comment><USER3> Hover is not possible on touch devices. From 5 possible interactions (left click, right click, left doubleclick, right double click, hover), we've gone to 2 (short press, long press). On the other hand, we have acquired gestures like pinch-zoom, so it may not be a big loss.

<comment><USER4> High-end Samsung Galaxy phones have a kind of hover effect (called "air-view") through an infrared sensor, so it's quite possible that in the future this could become a common feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also relevant: [http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats) by Allen B. Downey (free PDF but available as O'Reilly print).

<comment><USER6> His Think Bayes is another good one: [http://greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/](http://greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can people comment as to the quality of this article? Would it be a good place for a refresher on statistics? Are there any other such projects that people can recommend?

I like the way it has a strong Python focus.

<comment><USER8> Well Python is right there in the title! ;)

It looks like more of an ebook and it seems to cover most of the essentials in your typical undergrad course + bootstrapping and intro to bayesian. From what I scanned it might be a little slow if you're just looking for a stats refresher -- depending on your level of experience I'd recommend the numpy and pandas docs as a "next step up" from the link (and maybe a bit more practical IMO).

<comment><USER9> Also relevant - Statistics for Engineers Tutorial at SRECon15 - [https://github.com/HeinrichHartmann/StatisticsTutorial](https://github.com/HeinrichHartmann/StatisticsTutorial)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More good python resources: [http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical- inference-for-ever...](http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference- for-everyone-sie.html)

Harvard Data science class, in python: [http://cs109.github.io/2014/](http://cs109.github.io/2014/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I still have to finish reading it, but I wonder how python will ultimately stack up against R?

<comment><AUTHOR> Python has more consistent stats, time series and programming syntax (for the packages it does have), and better bayesian inference package (pymc 3 > stan).

Python is also better than R for ad hoc statistical modeling and algorithim development (you can write python code on the order of C fast with numba) , general programming, scraping, natural language processing, agent based modeling etc.

Python is also better for GIS, optimization, symbolic math and larger datasets with blaze and dask and pyspark.

R right now is a bit better for visualization, reporting and exploratory data analysis (I think this will change soon though with Bokeh and blaze) and has many more esoteric stats packages.

With statsmodels, pymc3, pandas and scikitlearn etc you can probably do 98% of everything you need in python without needing to dip into the more esoteric packages of R (with some exceptions). For everything else, you can call R packages with Rpy2. With this you get all the advantages of working in one language (not spread too thin) and the advantages that python offers while leveraging R's wealth of packages.

The latter is a bit more difficult through python, but not as hard as trying to remember the syntax of and gluing together a two language workflow.

That is why I chose python... Also I can write excel addins with python (xlwings) instead of using VBA

<comment><USER11> Genuine question, why do you find Pymc3 better than stan? Pymc3 is still in alpha, while Stan is stable since many years. They both implements the same algorithm (NUTS), so is it just the nicer syntax or is it anything else?

<comment><USER12> I've made minimal use of Stan, and not really used Pymc3, but from a quick look, it seems Pymc3 is a bit more integrated than RStan. In RStan, you end up writing Stan code as an alien, wrapping the foreign syntax in quotes, and then shoveling the code as a string into Stan. There isn't really an R grammar for Stan as near as I can tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Python: We Still Can't Do Generalized Linear Mixed Models, So Call R.

<comment><USER14> Or use pymc 3 for the bayes equivalent. It's Better anyways. Yes one can also use rpy2. I think glmm is a gsoc project or an upcoming pr but not 100% sure.</comment></comment>


What's Worth More: Kodak's Patents, or Its People? - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/08/19/what-is-kodack-worth-to-nyc-tech/

<comment><USER2> > While it might seem odd that patents on vintage cameras could be valuable in > the age of Instagram, when it comes to defending a patent in court, the more > prior art a company can own, the better

This sentence seems wrong to me.

If I want to invalidate a patent does it matter who owns the prior art? Isn't all that's needed an example that someone, event the patent holder had disclosed the invention before it was patented? Shouldn't it be irrelevant who "owns" the prior art?

<comment><USER3> Two points. First, when you're requesting a patent be reexamined, you're talking to a patent examiner. To a patent examiner, patents are the most convincing form of prior art--if only because she's used to reading them.

Second, it's widely thought to be risky to have your engineers read other people's patents, because then, if they later infringe those patents, the court is more likely to hold that it was willful infringement, and triple the damages. So, if you've got to have your engineers spend time reading patents, looking for prior art on your competitor's patent, you generally want them to be reading your _own_ patents.

<comment><USER4> You can't infringe on an expired patent, so you can have engineers read everyone else's expired patents without any fear of triple damages, no need to own anything. In fact that's the whole point of patents. After the monopoly has expired anyone can read the (hopefully) clear description of someone else's invention and use it.

<comment><USER3> True. Upvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My wife is from Rochester so I end up there a couple times a year. It's pretty incredible what the decline of Kodak has done to the city. It's something everyone talks about.

I think the challenge is people worked at Kodak because it was in their town. And, IMO, a lot of these people remain jobless because they don't want to leave Rochester. Accessing this talent-base would require a company making an investment in not only the people but the city. In my opinion, the potential reward doesn't justify the risk.

<comment><USER6> Rochester is an awesome place to raise a family. Housing is low priced, $150k gets you a very nice 1800 sqft house in Irondequoit / Greece or $200k gets you a very nice 2000 sqft house in Webster / Penfield. There's very little vehicle traffic (other than 390 and 590 southbound around 8am) and most places in Monroe county can be gotten to from anywhere else in 20 minutes. The spring, summer, and fall are amazing weather wise. There's tons of local festivals and parks. At least 7 local sports teams (men's [minor outdoor, pro indoor] & women's [pro outdoor] soccer, indoor and outdoor lacrosse, minor league baseball and ice hockey, and minor league basketball), it's an hour and 30 minute drive to Buffalo for Bills / Sabres games or to Syracuse for college sports. Both RIT and the University of Rochester are good schools and there's a bunch of smaller, lesser known, high quality schools as well.

Parts of the city itself may be in need of some improvement but the overall area around Rochester is a great place to live.

If only there was more local investment in engineering. The talent's here because of Kodak, Xerox, and the universities, how long it will stay is uncertain.

<comment><USER7> Bradfa - Do you want to talk for a story next week about Rochester to NYC tech corridor?

@benpopper

<comment><USER6> Possibly. Email me some info, my username @ gmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is actually a very active start-up scene in Rochester fueled by all the former Kodak folks who lost their jobs.

<comment><USER6> Got any recommendations on companies to check out / learn about that are starting up in Rochester? I live in Rochester but don't have much free time. Have a 1 month old at home.

Granted, a good number of the younger talented engineers are leaving upstate NY once they get some experience, many are still in the area. The past few years have seen Harris RF hire like crazy in the Rochester area, which has helped with the decline of engineering locally at Kodak and Xerox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> do patents not expire? how is an early 20th century patent still valid?

<comment><USER9> 17-20 years or so in the USA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> With patent valuations going through the roof, will we see a rise in salaries of engineers who crank out patents?

<comment><USER11> We're seeing a rise in patent bonuses, so engineers who crank out patents are being rewarded. Bonuses seem to be inching up towards many thousands of dollars per patent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If someone holds a knife to your throat, you would pay much for it - but this is not the value of the _knife_.</comment>


Microsoft Windows NT OS/2 Design Workbook (1989) - <AUTHOR> http://gate.upm.ro/os/LABs/Windows_OS_Internals_Curriculum_Resource_Kit-ACADEMIC/WindowsResearchKernel-WRK/NT_Design_Workbook/Get_Workbook/ <comment><USER2> Seeing the files in various Microsoft product formats reminds me that Office was at least partially dogfood for a growing company.</comment>


Btrfs Benchmarks - <AUTHOR> https://oss.oracle.com/projects/btrfs/dist/documentation/benchmark.html <comment><USER2> According to the _date_ meta tag this article was written in 2007.

<comment><USER3> Yep. Has to be ancient: _ext3, xfs and btrfs are compared below. The benchmarking machine is a Dell desktop machine (2.4ghz, dual core) on top of a single SATA drive running v2.6.21_</comment></comment>


Announcing Scala.js 0.6.8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.scala-js.org/news/2016/03/18/announcing-scalajs-0.6.8/ <comment><USER2> This is a really nice project, and personally is a humorous full-circle:

When I first started moving away from Java web apps (where I _hated_ JavaScript), I fell in love with Scala and it's mix of functional and OOP. Features like Futures/Promises, closures, awesome collection library, etc were so refreshing from Java at the time. After a year or so though, I realized JavaScript offered almost the exact same functionality, and had nice libs like underscore.js for collections, etc. :-)

I've been basically 100% JS for the past 4 years, but still admire Scala.

<comment><USER3> For me, one of Scala's most important features is its type system, which you aren't able to get in JavaScript (I know about flow and TypeScript, but they don't even come close in terms of features).

<comment><USER4> I could have stopped reading after seeing your user name :) Personally, Scala types are as powerful as intimidating, nevertheless acceptable for the value they enable for writers of libraries (which I probably never will be).

<comment><USER5> I read somewhere that Edward Kmett described how he writes apps: he first factors out the functionality into powerful, general-purpose libraries, and then just implements his app as a thin wrapper over the libraries. So, it's a matter of your mindset :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone doing some interesting Scala front and back projects? I'd love to hear some success (or lessons learned) stories. Is there a good "skeleton" project for a front end Scala.js + back end Scala.

I'm especially interested in reusing model objects between front and back, or is the best practice still to just use REST services the "old fashioned" way? (vs a more GWT-like approach that feels a little more like an RPC)

I would love to have my next project be all Scala but I wonder what are the benefits beyond just having a single language in the project. Is there a good sbt plugin / template that has a good workflow for continuous development/integration/deployment using Scala+Scala.js?

<comment><USER7> I built Boilerplay for that exact purpose - [https://github.com/KyleU/boilerplay](https://github.com/KyleU/boilerplay)

It uses the excellent sbt-scalajs to provide code shared between server and client, and a websocket controller that can receive those shared messages. It's tied to Play, sihouette, and postgres-async.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think all X => JS programming languages should support webpack loaders with commonJS module system for smooth transitions from one language to another.

<comment><USER9> It would indeed by lovely, but also a bit of a challenge in this case. Part of how scala.js is able to achieve reasonable javascript size is that it uses very aggressive dead code elimination including google closure compiler. In order to do that, it has to see ALL the code that's actually going to be used.

There's nothing preventing that single blob from being exported to webpack. I currently export stuff into a legacy require.js/angular app using globals, so I imagine the same could be accomplished with webpack.

The issue will arise when you attempt to include multiple "scala.js webpack" modules. Each one will be compiled as an independent unit and carry it's own subset of the scala standard libraries, etc. For a transitional scenario, that's probably fine, but it does make participation in a fully polyglot webpack-loader or npm ecosystem problematic.

<comment><USER2> Since webpack does dead code elimination as well, wondering if that all needs to be a problem solved in Scala.js?

<comment><USER10> Scala.js does a _much_ better dce than Webpack, or any other JavaScript optimizer (including Closure). It does it at the method level (not top-level function/class level), and can also leverage the type system to do a better job at it. So yes, it needs to be solved at the Scala.js level.

Scala.js also performs whole-program optimizations of the code, besides "simple" dead cole elimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you have used two or more of GWT, ClojureScript, Scala.js and Kotlin's and Ceylon's respective JavaScript compiler targets, could you share how working with them compares?

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if the 10-20% reduction in jar size[1] in current Scala 2.12 milestone will carry over to Scala.js? Or maybe Google Closure Compiler is already stripping out loads of anonymous classes in pre-2.12 Scala.js via aggressive DCE.

Would obviously be nice to get generated js blob as lean as possible since Scala 2.13 and overhauled/streamlined collections is still a ways off (at least 18 months post-2.12 GA if release schedule holds).

[1] [https://github.com/scala/scala/pull/5003#issuecomment-198150...](https://github.com/scala/scala/pull/5003#issuecomment-198150391)

<comment><USER13> I would guess unlikely. The reduction in JAR size as mentioned there is due to relying on Java 8 now which gives more JVM-native approaches to things Scala was otherwise emulating (e.g. multiple inheritance). Scala.JS works off of an IR and is not related to native JVM constructs or JVM bytecode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Otto did an amazingly comprehensive webcast on how to dev in scala-js and how it fits into the big picture. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPWDKEQLjpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPWDKEQLjpI)</comment>


Mmd.js is a standalone minimalist Markdown parser in ~860 bytes of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/p01/mmd.js <comment><USER2> Characters. Not bytes.</comment>


Covid-19 is spurring science to accelerate - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2020/06/05/jennifer-doudna-on-how-covid-19-is-spurring-science-to-accelerate <comment><USER2> I can't read the article (paywall). But what I've seen so far is mainly the rate of irreproducible crap has gone up, and the reproducible stuff hasn't been published yet.</comment>


New leukemia treatment "exceeded our wildest expectations" - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44090512/ <comment><USER2> From the article:

"Both the National Cancer Institute and several pharmaceutical companies declined to pay for the research. Neither applicants nor funders discuss the reasons an application is turned down. But good guesses are the general shortage of funds and the concept tried in this experiment was too novel and, thus, too risky for consideration."

The keywords are "experiment was too novel, and thus, too risky for consideration". Unfortunately, this seems to have become the rule rather than the exception in scientific research. All the young folks (pre-tenure) are on a treadmill to get funding and publish _something_ in the top journals/conferences. I wish there was some accountability in the system ... the geniuses who rejected funding this research will go about completely unaffected.

<comment><USER3> The article doesn't touch on one aspect of the research likely to have been particularly unpalatable to pharmaceutical companies: Potential cures are bad business.

Of course, there is no conspiracy here. It's just the human tendency to rationalize when money is involved. Imagine you run a pharmaceutical company: Your products save lives, right? You want to be able to continue saving lives, so you have to stay profitable. And to stay profitable, you have to make good investments. Products that are used in long-term treatments are good investments. One-time cures aren't.

<comment><USER4> I spent 8 years in pharmaceutical industry R&D and this is so ill-informed I feel compelled to refute it every time someone says it. I know it sounds like it makes sense on the surface, but it's just outright false.

I worked in cancer research with some really, really smart people. Every single one of them was sincerely hopeful that the drug they were working on would be a total cure. I know it's hard to believe, but pharma companies are composed of real people who have seen patients, friends, and relatives die of cancer or similar diseases. Researchers want so badly to find a cure for the disease they are working on. The existence of vaccines are proof that when pharma companies can cure something, they do it. I have been in conversations where business factors for a drug were discussed and I can tell you the one thing that was never said was, "Hey guys, make sure it's not an actual cure, or we'll need to kill the project".

<comment><USER3> Firstly: You're right; I am ill-informed on this. I haven't any doubt that you or your colleagues had and continue to have strong humanitarian convictions in your work, and I was out of line to speak so broadly.

I recognize that the argument I made earlier is something of an old saw. But you and I both know that businesses on the scale of most pharma companies are not run only by researchers and engineers, and that the explicit reasons for business decisions anywhere often stem from any number of unspoken ones. I don't imagine even the coldest of bean counters ever says "we need to make sure this research doesn't lead to a cure," and I doubt such a black-and-white assessment of a complex R&D process even occurs to them. But incentives are incentives, and humans are masters of rationalization.

I'm heartened to learn that your teams never felt pressure to put business interests ahead of patient interests. I sincerely hope your experience is common.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your comments. The pharma industry has a lousy public perception, some of which is quite justified, so it can be hard to separate the reality from the perception.

There is also a practical reason why I can assure you that people are usually swinging for the fences, especially in cancer: most of the time you don't even know if a drug will work, let alone work well. There is no way to predict (with the obvious exception of vaccines which owing to biology are destined to be cures from the beginning) what your drug will _really_ do until it hits the clinic. So there isn't even a mechanism to offer people an incentive to develop a drug someone has to take over and over vs. a cure, especially in cancer. Certainly, there are chronic conditions like diabetes where there is no real "cure" on the horizon because of the biology of the situation. But in the case of cancer, you almost have to try for a total success because you know you're likely to get far, far less than that when you hit the clinic. Because of this problem, one of the bigger issues in pharma is that flawed projects are allowed to linger long after they should have just been scrapped because powerful scientists _believed_ they would work and convinced management to keep funding them despite some of their issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing I was left wondering about and maybe someone here can shed some more light on this, what happens to the supposedly enormous amount of "serial killer" white blood cells after they're done with the cancer cells? Do they function normally, until a new "infection" comes, basically serving as a permanent leukemia antidote?

(I hope no one is offended by my quite flimsy grasp of medicine and the human body)

<comment><USER6> According to this article: [http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/hiv-virus- used-to-tur...](http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/hiv-virus-used-to-turn- white-blood-cells-into-cancer-serial-killers-20110811/)

"More good news stems from the fact that the modified cells remain in the body and have been seen to reactivate and kill new cancer cells as long as 12 months after they were first injected."

Incredible stuff :)

<comment><USER7> It almost sounds like a cancer vaccine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Original New England Journal of Medicine paper on this subject: <http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1103849>

</comment><comment><USER9> Came up with an idea (edit: wrote in generalization, took to much credit, sorry, didn't want to bore everyone with details) 10 years ago, everybody thought I was crazy for wanting to inject HIV into people. The idea I had was to treat the human immune system like a computers anti-virus software and upload treatments using the HIV virus. Didn't think the FDA would even allow something like this for at least another decade. Really believe HIV is the key to ending disease in humans, even possibly aging.

Wonder how they handled its affinity for mutation? That was the big hurtle.

EDIT: xd corrected me. They did it in vitro. Which explains how they got around the FDA.

<comment><USER10> <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Viral_vector>

This idea has been around a hell of a lot longer than 10 years. Looks like you were late to the party. There also isn't a particular need to use HIV to do this in the general case either, the purpose of virii in general is to inject DNA into existing organisms.

<comment><USER9> Completely right. Didn't want to go into detail meant the anti-virus theory and why. I'll try to explain. You want to use HIV because of a few unique properties specifically the fact that you can split the gene material used in replication from the infection machinery. In addition it actual has most of the genes in place to do all the work you need since it's so well mapped and studied modifying the structure becomes much easier. My idea was to limit the insertion to only the original material (like a seedless watermelon) to remove the danger. And have virus upload the sequence needed to produce the antibodies or receptors required to target the foreign object. Then have the body kill it itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone with a genetic disorder, this type of gene therapy is really amazing to read about.

<comment><USER12> What is masked by some of the hoopla around cancer is exactly this, gene therapy is advancing, and it can rewrite your DNA in-situ. This meets pretty much every definition of the term 'game changing' from atheletes who want the Sherpa gene for making more red blood cells to a host of genetic disorders that lead to a myriad of complications in the patients life. Some resarch has been marred by some very serious negative outcomes [1] but if it can be mastered, the world will not be the same, for any of us.

[1] <http://www.medpagetoday.com/Genetics/GeneralGenetics/6275>

<comment><USER13> Here's what I don't get about your hypothesis... very rarely is there a single gene for specific trait in humans, right? Usually it's a combination of genes, and often the trait produced is the effect of their impact on embryology.

So wouldn't it be impossible (and possibly extremely dangerous) to attempt to change many traits by performing in-situ DNA rewrites?

<comment><USER12> Yes, it would be extremely dangerous.

As I understand the current research, its focussed on 'fixing' problems where one link of the chain is broken. So when a specific set of enzymes are missing (think lactose intolerance) or immunodeficiencies.

Wholesale rewriting chunks of DNA would, as far as I can tell, likely kill the patient. That being said, the potential gain for some to have larger changes to their DNA will no doubt compel someone to try it. A biologist that gave a tech talk at Google on the technology said he had received calls from althetic trainers asking about how his work might be applied to other areas. He was convinced that there was already some efforts at using gene therapy to 'improve' some athletes capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> has this method of cancer fighting been only applied to leukemia patients or could it work for other types of cancer as well? since T-cells reach almost every part of the body, couldn't they be reprogrammed to kill some other cells apart from carcinogenic white blood cells?

</comment><comment><USER15> I love how they didn't get any funding. If the government stopped wasting it's money by funding a needless war, and actually put that money to good use in research and education... maybe America could be a leader in innovation once more.

</comment><comment><USER16> © 2010 msnbc.com Reprints

Ok, so what has happened after the article was printed the first time?

EDIT: ok, looks like it was just an error by msnbc. It does seem fresh: [http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MED_GENE_THERAPY_L...](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MED_GENE_THERAPY_LEUKEMIA?SITE=NYWNE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

</comment><comment><USER17> Great outcomes for those patients, but it has to go >3 patients, and survival >5 years before people get worked up. This is a difficult disease and people will get hyped up quickly.

</comment><comment><USER18> _In each of the patients as much as five pounds of cancerous tissue completely melted away_

I always thought the entire cancerous tissue would be no more than 1/8 pound.

</comment><comment><USER19> I voted up your posting, but please use the original title "New leukemia treatment exceeds 'wildest expectations'". The HIV part is pretty irrelevant.

<comment><USER20> To me the use of a harmless, modified HIV was the most interesting part.

<comment><USER21> Me too, I'd like to know whether a consensus exists that this HIV is harmless or whether it's just these researchers' opinions.

<comment><AUTHOR> The HIV is used to modify white blood cells .. so I'd wager harmless as they are not putting the HIV into the patient.

This is why I changed the title after a little nudge, to avoid people getting the wrong end of the stick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wasn't UPenn banned from receiving federal funding for gene therapy research after the whole Jesse Gelsinger controversy in the late 90s? How did they receive funding for this?

Also, 3 patients isn't statistically significant. Having this in the national media is going to cause mass confusion in the general public. There needs to be many more studies on this therapy before it's actually used as a treatment.

<comment><USER23> Actually, statistical significance has a definition. Not to be snide, but you should look it up before commenting.

<comment><USER22> For this particular study the numbers are fantastic, but there is no indication that this therapy will actually cure any other CLL patients. Just last year the NCI estimated there would be 15,000 CLL new patients. A favorable result with just 3 patients isn't a big enough percentage to call this new treatment anything but experimental.

However, that wasn't my original point. This therapy is obviously at a very early stage. Headlines like this in the lay media are extremely misleading to the general public, because a majority of people will not take the time to read or understand the entirety of the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am hopeful but also reminded of the opening of 'I am Legend':

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aouT6EMJh8#t=00m21s>

(The distracting leading quote and music has been added by the uploader... but I can't find an alternate clip of this set-up scene that also includes the important cut to 'three years later' at the end.)

</comment><comment><USER25> >> ...several pharmaceutical companies declined to pay for the research.

Great! No greedy corporation to patent it and sell off the method at overpriced rates.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is definitely promising!

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow, that's amazing. I hope the results hold up.

My father died of type 2 non hodkins lymphoma in 1997 when I was 17; he was sick for 4 years from two rounds of lymphoma, plus a marrow transplant. Every time I read about advances like this I feel bad about wasting my life building better advertising instead of doing biomed. I just wish biomed paid better wages -- I much more than doubled my income by leaving a wetlab and doing advertising instead. It's a lesson in what our society really values. And now I feel like Steve Yegge.

<comment><USER28> I don't think your conclusion about society's values necessarily follows. In a society that valued biomed more, you'd have to pay the same candidate a higher salary to get them to work in advertising.

<comment><USER29> Uh, typically when society "values" an industry more, they show their appreciation of this value through a higher salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So this means it will be $10k a shot in the USA and $500 everywhere else until India clones it?

<comment><USER31> $10K? A bargain if you ask me. Especially considering the current cost of Leukemia treatment.

<comment><USER30> So if you cannot afford the $10k you should just die quietly?</comment></comment></comment>


The Twin Prime Hero: Rags, Riches, and Fame in Mathematics (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/5/fame/the-twin-prime-hero

<comment><USER2> His advisor, T.T. Moh, would not write letters of recommendation. This confirms my low opinion of T.T. Moh. I had him as an instructor at Purdue during graduate school. The worst teacher I ever had.

<comment><USER3> As per Moh, Zhang never asked Moh for letters of recommendation (I find that hard to believe. Zhang would not mention it if he had not asked Moh for help). [http://www.math.purdue.edu/~ttm/ZhangYt.pdf](http://www.math.purdue.edu/~ttm/ZhangYt.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that's simply not believable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And he just won a MacArthur: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8328587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8328587). Hard not to feel great about this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe it's just me, but his answers are hilariously terse.

> Are you interested in cryptography?

>> Not so much.

> Would you describe yourself as famous now?

>> Yes.

> Would you accept a medal?

>> Yes.</comment>


Pre-Conscious Humans May Have Been Like the Borg - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/pre_conscious-humans-may-have-been-like-the-borg <comment><USER2> ok. This reminds me of Neal Stephenson's snowcrash [1] , where he weaves the tower of Babel into his story, and talks of the Sumerian culture & the idea of "me", instructions on how to run civilization.

In the novel, he synthesizes academic research to speculate that Sumerian priests gave these instructions to the residents, who would then 'execute' these instructions.

The key point I took away from the book (relevant to this article) is that these instructions were actually, instructions that were followed mechanically --> not necessarily consciously.

Considering that the Sumerian civilization was extant between 4000 B.C to 2,500 BC, well before the 3000 years for the development of the human conscious speculated in the article, I have new respect for Snowcrash. I'll likely go and read it again now.

Note that, as the article says, it is a very intriguing theory, but I am not sure if the switch from a "bicameral mind" to conscious individuality due to language, writing, etc. would be so sudden. For one thing, many other animals have a sense of identity (not necessarily individuality, which, I would argue, is different), so a sense of individual identity itself is not a defining feature of modern humans.

I find it a little difficult to accept a sudden switch to explain the development of language, writing, etc. Language / communication may require evolutionary development of neural structures that seems difficult over such a rapid, short period of time. It possibly is a more gradual process. Nonetheless, very intriguing. I wonder if Neal Stephenson referred to the same work by Julian Jaynes.

Edit: Looks like Neal Stephenson did refer to & credit Julian Jaynes. Awesome!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Plot_summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Plot_summary) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_\(mythology\))

Edit: Added the last paragraph</comment>


Who Smeared Richard Feynman? (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/07/11/smeared-richard-feynman/ <comment><USER2> Archive.org URL:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200604154641/http://blog.nucle...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200604154641/http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/07/11/smeared- richard-feynman/)

</comment><comment><USER3> "it made the newspapers because of Bell's allegations of "extreme cruelty" by Feynman, including the notion that he spent all of his waking hours either doing calculus and playing the bongos." I find it hard to imagine a world where the eccentric behaviors and personal lives of practicing scientists would receive newspaper coverage.

<comment><USER4> _I find it hard to imagine a world where the eccentric behaviors and personal lives of practicing scientists would receive newspaper coverage._

Really? Such tactics are all over the media nowadays. Read _Manufacturing Consent_ then look for all of the tactics in the western "propaganda model" of operation updated for 2020. The news has never been subtle about this sort of manipulation since at least the 80's. By comparison, what I see nowadays, it seems like journalists think everyone's a mental toddler.

Look for emotional language in articles. Then count up the hard facts. There's an inverse relationship. It's not supposed to be like this!

<comment><USER3> The most significant separator for me is that, from my understanding, Feynman was an actual practicing scientist. I am struggling to think of anyone in an analogous position today who has received this kind of attention.

<comment><USER5> Nowadays, we focus primarily on wealthy (loosely) Internet-related businessmen. Do you think anyone really cares about Travis Kalanick's antics or what Elon Musk names his kids?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 55 comments in 2014 on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024982](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024982)

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, it may well have been his ex-wife... that was my guess when I read the headline.

<comment><USER8> Esp. his 2nd wife from Boise, if I remember correctly. An old article which I remember well.

He had better luck with his other two wife's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I suspect form the viewpoint of the F.B.I. that it's not only someone's allegiance that is important, but how verifiable that allegiance is.

Given that the most clever and intelligent among us could be better prepared for subterfuge, it perhaps makes the question of "Is Feynman trustworthy?" rather difficult.

</comment><comment><USER10> Archive link: [https://archive.is/nK4RS](https://archive.is/nK4RS)

</comment><comment><USER11> (2014) but well worth the repost

</comment><comment><USER12> This is extremely speculative.

</comment><comment><USER13> 500 Error for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200604154641/http://blog.nucle...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200604154641/http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/07/11/smeared- richard-feynman/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wouldn't surprise me if Feynman was at least sympathetic to communism, at least to anarchism for sure, on some of the lectures when he talks about his father teaching him about equality and the disdain for prizes and titles.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure if he was not so much sympathetic to communism as skeptical of capitalism. At least that's the impression I got from reading his books. He's not a guy who was too concerned with money and didn't appear to have a high regard for people who do. He was much more interested in having experiences. The top-down government model of communism wouldn't be a fit for him either, he was much too free wheeling for that. Anarchism would be a bit closer but almost certainly too radical for someone not that concerned with politics. Libertarianism might have been the best fit, but only the on-paper kind, not the real life kind.

<comment><USER16> _Libertarianism might have been the best fit_

Fun fact: In Feynman's formative years, 'libertarian' still meant 'anarchist'.

<comment><USER17> The distinctions between 'socialist', 'anarchist', 'communist', 'libertarian', and then 'objectivist' (Randian) and probably others are too blurry when considering it across time and geography; rather than most often as names of politically parties, basically "brands".

I think libertarianism had been defined in opposition to non-democratic regimes; then after the fall of feudalism it continued to be used by socialism/anarchism/communism.

I think the US Libertarian Party's name serves (or served) mostly as a rebranding of anarchism, but I am not sure about the origins of that party, anybody more knowledgeable please join in. An interesting note about them is that both Ayn Rand and Frank Zappa dismissed them as closet anarchists.

I am also interested in when did the influx of the right wing into "anarchism" or "libertarianism" happen? Maybe it has something to do with Lenin&co.'s and later Stalin's suppression of anarchism, and even later the Cold war propaganda?

Also, who invented the weird term 'anarcho-capitalist'?

<comment><USER18> > who invented the weird term 'anarcho-capitalist'?

The economist Murray Rothbard used it first in the mid-20th century, according to the Wikipedia page on anarcho-capitalism. He felt free to use the term as it borrowed some ideas from anarchism, but many would say he excluded crucial parts.

Most anarchists are very unwilling to be associated with anarcho-capitalism, and resent the prefix. They are probably even less thrilled about being associated with the libertarian party.

US Libertarians: limit the size and scope of government

Anarcho-capitalism: no centralised state, society self-regulates via free markets.

Anarchism: no heirarchical power structures, thus no private capital at all.

<comment><USER17> > US Libertarians: limit the size and scope of government

What I was aiming at with GP post was that as far as I understand, at least in the early days of the Libertarian Party, a significant number of them were actually completely against the existence of a government. (Wikipedia mentions something about an "anarchist-minarchist debate" or something like that.)

But political reality of course leads to compromise. It is simply untenable in the US, and most of the Earth to be taken seriously by a large majority of voters while espousing getting rid of the government.

<comment><USER18> Whilst true, a lot of political movements in history have had goals that seemed completely untenable at the time, yet succeeded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He doesn't exactly paint a flattering account of his social self in his autobiographies - mostly in his interactions with service staff.

<comment><USER20> Yeah and he's not exactly silent about his desire or attempts to womanize. IDK why it's so hard to like a dude, respect his work and love his writing yet simultaneously understand he's a bit of a dirt bag.

<comment><USER21> He possibly was a narcissist simply looking for narcissistic supply. Or let's say high on this particular trait. These people are very successful and are attracted to the limelight and a lot of the times are inspiring as well because in their need to gratify themselves and their values they actually do achieve a great deal of things. However, the close ones may be neglected though, as they no longer posses narcissistic supply and their own needs interfere with the narcissist's pursuit, which pursuit is very selfish in nature. A lot of unsuspecting people are more or less on this spectrum but the fame aspect of them makes them more of assholes to the close friends and family.

Passionate people who get some limelight may steer on this path. Passionate and humble people don't get their dopamine from other's or they do but to a much lesser extent. They don't crave it as much as the former.

All things said, I don't think Feynman should be judged on his moral values, he never claimed he was a priest or a monk, he loved life and gratification. He was inspiring to others and that is what matters.

I found Richard Feynman very inspiring and I still do.

<comment><USER15> Some of his own writings stray deeply into redpill territory when talking about women. Distasteful today, but hardly out of line for the era. Had he lived he would have been the subject of many #metoo anecdotes, at least if his autobiographies are accurate.

<comment><USER21> Yes, that seems spot on but we need context to understand him better and we need to understand why this is done in the first place. Looking up long dead peoole for faults is not my hobby and think that one will find faults of different nature all around us.

As I mentioned in another comment, I suspect Feynman had some narcissistic traits, but that does not make me less inspired by his lectures and I don't see the point of pointing these out in relation to his work directly. The output of his work had a positive influence and that should be held into account.

Another example. I love some of Arthur Clarke's works and ideas. He was also a pedo guy and he lived and done his dirty deeds in Sri Lanka. Disgusting? yeah, absolutely. Should that make me like his works and ideas less? That is bound to confuse my brains:) so I conveniently compartimentalize his work from other things. And I agree that this personal fact could be mentioned along with his name but his work is a separate thing though

<comment><USER22> 'In 1998, a British newspaper reported that he paid Sri Lankan boys for sex, leading to the cancellation of plans for Prince Charles to knight him on a visit to the country.[46][47] The accusation was subsequently found to be baseless by the Sri Lankan police and was retracted by the newspaper'

<comment><USER15> Apparently that didn't stop him from being knighted[1].

[1] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/43739.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/43739.stm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Somehow I read "Richard Stallman". Kept on thinking so until I managed to open the archive.org URL.

<comment><USER24> It's an understandable mistake[0].

[0]: [https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/](https://sterling- archermedes.github.io/)</comment></comment>